Episode Six: The Intruder

In March 1868 Queen Victoria’s son Prince Alfred was at a charity
event in Sydney, Australia when an Irishman named Henry O’Farrell
walked up behind him and shot the young prince at point blank
range in the back, just missing his spine. O’Farrell was
captured, beaten, swiftly tried and found guilty of attempted
murder, and then hanged. Alfred survived the attack, but the
Victorian world was clearly becoming a more dangerous place for
the Royal Family. Queen Victoria hadn’t encountered an assassin
of her own for almost two decades, but many felt that her luck
couldn’t last.


In 1872 Queen Victoria was a grieving widow who was rarely seen
in public, then in January Arthur read that a thanksgiving
service would be held at St Paul’s Cathedral to celebrate the
recovery of the Prince of Wales from serious illness. The papers
were full of the plans for the day and the news galvanised
teenager Arthur O’Connor into action.


Dr Bob Nicholson explores the backstory of Victoria’s sixth
attacker - Arthur O’Connor, an aspiring poet from a family of
Irish nationalists. Dreaming of following in his ancestor’s
footsteps, the young O’Connor concocted an audacious plan: in
front of thousands of the Queen’s subjects, he would put a gun to
her head and force her to sign a document releasing a group of
Irish republican prisoners who had been fighting for
independence. Arthur looked forward to dying a hero’s death.